


the earth is trembling on some new beginning

by swainlake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, F/M, Post-Season/Series 04, a fast-paced slow burn, bellamy stays on earth with clarke, we love to see it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swainlake/pseuds/swainlake
Summary: He has no idea if it would work, no idea if there was enough time for it to work.But he’s not leaving her.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 48
Kudos: 213





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> hello everybody! i've been talking about this au for a while because lbr it's what we all deserve but i finally got around to actually writing it! i hope you enjoy x
> 
> title is from _be_ by hozier.

  
__________________________

Clarke wakes screaming.

In an instant, those screams turn to wet, rasping heaves as black blood and _was that_ _flesh_? spew from her mouth in painful rivulets. 

Screaming hurts. 

_Breathing_ hurts.

Is she dying?

She must be. 

This must be what dying feels like.

She’s _burning_.

Painful as it is, she can’t stop herself from screaming again. 

And again.

 _Please,_ she thinks. 

_Let her be dying._

_If that’s what it takes to make this stop, let her be dying._

_Please._

  
__________________________

A long time ago, before the dream of living on the ground was even a twinkle in the Council’s eye, Clarke had read a book on the Ark-wide digital library on Joan of Arc.

A teenage girl, giving her life for others.

Then-fourteen-year-old Clarke had absolutely _idolised_ her. She wasn’t a warrior, wasn’t privileged the way Clarke herself was, but she had faith in herself and what she thought was right. 

She was the personification of the lessons her dad had spent her entire life trying to teach her. 

Do what’s right, no matter the personal cost.

Still.

She’d cried for _days_ after learning Joan’s fate.

Alone.

Abandoned.

Trapped. 

Martyred in fire.

This feels like that.

  
__________________________

The next time she wakes, Bellamy is there.

She can’t speak, wants to say his name or reach out, _touch him_ —wants to make sure he’s really here, with her—but her fingers only manage a slight twitch before she’s out again.  
  


__________________________

The next time feels different.

Different, and the same.

Her body still aches, and she thinks it might feel like this for a while. 

She’d always known intellectually that radiation burns were no joke, she’d seen the aftereffects herself more than once, but well. Now she _knows_.

Her skin is so _sore_ , and worse, it’s _itchy_.

She feels like an open wound that’s already trying it’s best to heal and she hates it. She breathes and she can hear a faint rattling, and vaguely she wonders if she’s burnt on the inside as well.

She must be.

Her helmet had broken and she’d done her best to plug it up with her hands as she _ran ran_ _ran_ , but she remembers choking on ash and embers.

Even if she had miraculously managed to keep the worst of the radiation burns from getting inside of her, she thinks maybe she still got burnt from the sheer heat of the flames she’d been running from.

Her whole body _burns_ and she’s glad she doesn’t have to try and verbalise the degree of agony she’s currently experiencing—both inside and out—like her mum had always expected her to when she was sick as a child.

She doesn’t think she _could_ verbalise it.

Not this time.

There were just no words.

At least, she thinks, she’s able to think past the pain instead of being consumed by it.

Clarke tries very hard not to think about how she’s become so very used to thinking through her pain.

This is different, but the same.

She’s lying down, and not where she collapsed after barely managing to close the doors to Becca’s lab just as Praimfaya hit. She’s in a bed. Or on a couch. Something too-soft after months of sleeping on the ground outside. She shifts and feels the slide of cotton against her skin. Her radiation suit is gone and a quick look downwards tells her that she’s been covered with an off-white sheet.

She licks her lips and tastes something sticky and sour.

Her eyes dart around the room and the first thing she sees is glass on the floor, thinks maybe she’s responsible. She vaguely remembers collapsing against a bench, knocking over. . . something. The sound of shattering. 

Another day on the ground, another mess made.

She really can't bring herself to care. 

Not when what she mostly remembers is not being able to breathe from the stitch in her side and the way her throat _burned_.

There are no lights except for the soft red glow of the emergency lights running across the floor of the room, although she can still faintly hear the hum of the air conditioner. The lab’s generator must’ve somehow survived the flames. 

Next to her is an empty, flattened tube of something that might be moisturiser, the expiry date long worn away. She crinkles her nose in confusion and feels the same tackiness she felt on her lips; figures the moisturiser is on her.

But who—?

That’s when she sees him.

Bellamy.

 _Bellamy_.

Curled into an armchair that’s far too small for him, she thinks he’s a hallucination at first.

Or maybe she’s finally dead and this is the afterlife.

Generally speaking, those born on the Ark aren’t raised on religion. There are a few families who’ve done their best to keep their cultures alive of course, it hasn’t been _that_ long since the world first ended after all, but as a consensus, the closest they usually come to prayer and worship was when they took turns tending to the Last Tree.

Still, learning about all the different kinds of religions there were had been a part of their general curriculum in school. Clarke had always been partial to the ones which featured reincarnation, while Wells had liked the ones which had some sort of paradise after death.

She can’t help but think this might be one of those.

This might be Heaven.

Paradise.

It couldn’t be anything else, with him here.

With her.

Of _course_ he’d be here, she thinks bemusedly. There’s no paradise, no _peace_ , without him.

Though, she thinks. You’d think that if there _was_ an afterlife, and if this was it, it’d at least give him the benefit of more leg-room.

Full of confusion, she makes to sit up, to reach out to him, but even that slight movement makes her groan from the effort of it. 

What was he _doing here_? Where were the others? Did the rocket not work?

Had her final, excruciating sacrifice been for nothing?

It’s Bellamy himself who pulls her from her panicked thoughts when he shifts awkwardly in the armchair, almost dropping to the floor when he moves too close to the edge. His eyes shoot open and she thinks maybe he wasn’t as deeply asleep as he’d first appeared. 

He yawns, blinking the sleep from his eyes even as they automatically shift to look to where she’s lying. He practically does a double-take at seeing her awake, letting out a choked gasp. In a flash he abandons the chair and moves closer to her, biting back a wince at his apparently too-quick movements even as he reaches his hand out to her. He stops before actually touching her and she doesn’t know if it’s because of her burns, or because he’s as scared as she is that this is all a dream.

The look on his face is disbelieving and his voice trembles hopefully as he croaks out her name.

“B—” She coughs, swallows, tries again; “Bellamy?” 

All at once his shoulders slump in relief, “ _Clarke_.”

Like he’d been waiting for it.

He crouches down next to the bed so they’re eye-level and she turns her head on the pillow to face him. Her cheek sinks into the pillow and she peeks up at him through the sweaty strands of her hair. “Hi.”

His lips twitch, though he still looks pained at the sight of her. “Hi.”

“What happened?”

A pause and then a huff of not-quite-laughter. “Well, the world ended.”

“Oh,” She snarks back half-heartedly, “Is that what that was?”

He hums, eyes roving over her face as though he can’t quite believe she’s awake and talking to him. As though he thought he’d never see her again after Praimfaya. She knows the feeling. “Fire. Destruction. Nothing unexpected.”

“ _You_ are.” She replies pointedly. “What happened to the rocket to space?”

In her peripheral she sees his fingers clench the sheet beside her, “What happened to not being late?”

She inhales sharply, eyes flicking up to meet his own dark brown ones. “Bell—”

“I mean, what the _hell_ , Clarke?” His grip tightens even further on the sheet and she swears she can hear the sound of the fabric ripping. “When you didn’t come back—”

“Hey, _hey_ ,” She moves to thread her fingers through his own, and he instantly releases the hold he has on the sheet to grasp back at her tightly. She grunts unattractively when he does, skin still feeling too-tight and rubbed raw. Like the sunburn she’d gotten in her first week on the ground, times a thousand. His mouth turns down at her discomfort and he instantly tries to move away but she refuses to let him take back his hand. “I’m sorry, Bellamy. I’m so sorry.” 

He looks pained, “God, don’t be _sorry_ —”

“But I _am_. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

He snorts derisively, leaning forward to press his forehead against their conjoined hands. “Nothing is how it’s supposed to be.” 

“We’re okay, though.” She smiles shakily, blinking back tears even though she knows he wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. “We’re okay.”

He shudders in a breath, sounding like maybe he’s holding back tears as well, and tightens his grip on her hand again. It doesn’t hurt as much this time. She lets her eyes fall closed as she listens to the hum of the miraculously still-running air conditioning and focuses on the warmth of his hand in hers.

She knows he’s real for sure now, knows that this isn’t the afterlife.

Maybe being the Commander of Death has its perks after all.

They’re quiet for a long while before something occurs to her. She blinks her eyes open and squeezes his hand. He hums questioningly but she hesitates for a beat as she rolls the thought over in her mind before breaking the silence, “Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

“ _How_ are we okay?”

He lifts his head but doesn’t quite meet her eyes, focusing on the sight of their clasped hands instead. “I couldn’t leave.”

“The rocket—”

“No,” He pauses, swallows. “I mean I couldn’t leave _you_.”

She inhales sharply, “ _What_? Bellamy!”

He brushes her shock aside, hand moving from beneath her own to run through his hair, “I wasn’t going to leave you behind, Clarke.” He meets her eyes. “Not when I just got you back.”

She takes him in then, finally notices the unusual paleness of his skin. The clamminess. The black streaks peaking from underneath his shirt.

“What did you do?” She breathes.

__________________________

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, comments and kudos are absolutely appreciated & not to be _that person_ but they really do inspire me to update (though please write something other than 'i hope you update soon' lmao)
> 
> — come visit me on [tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/swainslake/)


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few quick notes to answer some questions from comments:
> 
> this fic will have alternating pov's between clarke & bellamy; this chap is bellamy's pov & next will be clarke again, etc. i'm not sure how many chapters this will end up being because it all depends on whether i continue into s5 — i will keep yall posted!! also so far i've written the first 4ish chapters so i'm gonna try and post at least once a week moving forward and i am _determined_ not to abandon this! but please keep commenting because it inspires me/guilts me into writing, even if it's just to tell me you liked a particular line or would like to see more of something, etc.

  
__________________________

This is what Bellamy did:

He waited for her, like he always seemed to be doing. 

Waited until he couldn’t anymore, and then he turned towards the rocket Raven had just ducked into and followed her up the stairs.

Then, he wordlessly shut the door behind her.

In an instant he could hear the muffled yells of panic and confusion from his friends as they all scream for him, asking what he thought he was doing, telling him not to be so _stupid_. He can hear Murphy swear, and Harper’s sobs. 

Bellamy Blake has faced death more than once in his life, but this moment? With his friends screaming his name as he locks them in the only lifeboat left in the whole world? Well, he was man enough to admit to himself that it sounded exactly like a death sentence. 

It _felt_ like a death sentence.

There’d be no coming back from this, one way or another.

The hatch remains locked.

He looks through the small window of the door and meets the panicked gaze of Raven. Her hands are pressed to the glass so hard her fingertips have turned white and she’s screaming at him angrily, viciously, but Bellamy just smiles tightly back at her.

Fits his hand on the glass, opposite her own. 

_May we meet again._

Then he turns away, grabbing the last syringe full of nightblood from where it’d been stashed after their last-ditch effort to save everybody had been declared a failure.

Without letting himself think too hard about how gods-damned _stupid_ he was being, he injects the solution directly into what he thinks, _hopes_ , is his vein. 

(“It’s called the _vena cava_ ,” Clarke had told their hunting party matter-of-factly in the earliest days on the ground. The delinquents hadn’t exactly respected her as a person back then, not with who her mother was, but they’d certainly respected her knowledge of anatomy. Probably also because of who her mother was. “Hit that instead of the _aorta_ and whatever you’re hunting will have just enough time to run away from you before it dies. With our luck, it’ll end up in a Grounder trap and we won’t have anything to eat. Aim for the artery.”)

He has no idea if it would work, no idea if there was enough _time_ for it to work. 

But he’s not leaving her.

Not again.

Never again.

__________________________

He refuses to let her leave the bed until the worst of her burns appear to have healed. At least enough that they no longer _ooze_.

He can’t say she fights him very hard on it. She’d put up a token protest of course, because she wouldn’t be Clarke Griffin if she wasn’t doing her best to grin and bear it, but he knows she probably still feels like she’s been dragged through and then force-fed hot coals. 

His own hands still burn from when he’d had to take off her suit for her, barely hesitating before pulling off his own gloves when they got in the way of pulling her from the radiation-covered rubber.

He can practically hear Raven dragging him for his blatant disregard for the proper use of personal protective equipment.

He’d refused to leave her side that entire first day, and half of the next, but after nearly fourty eight hours of watching her wince in her sleep every time she so much as twitches, he eventually goes in search of something to help soothe her (and his) pain.

There’s a tube of aloe moisturiser in a bathroom cabinet, expired of course, but he thinks that’s probably better than nothing. He carefully smooths it across the worst of her burns, tracing the same path his fingertips had travelled when they’d joked about cold sweat.

He’s the one sweating now, for better or for worse. 

He trembles as he rubs it across her split lips and he clenches his hands into fists in an effort to stop it. There’s only enough for a single application on her face and neck, and he hesitates for a second before using the very last drop on his own hands.

She’d kill him if she knew he wasn’t looking after himself.

_If she lives._

Eventually, he manages to convince himself that she won't suddenly die if he takes his eyes off of her long enough to finally, finally let himself pass out.

He sleeps fitfully, half due to the discomfort of trying to fit his whole body in a teeny-tiny armchair, and half because he’s genuinely scared she’ll stop breathing in the night. He wakes when he almost falls out of the chair completely and it’s as he’s blinking the sleep from his eyes, resigned to being awake, that he sees her.

Also awake.

But more importantly:

 _Alive_.   
  


__________________________

It’s her that hesitantly mentions that she thinks she can feel the nightblood working to heal her and he pauses before agreeing with her assessment. His hands feel better than he thinks they should, and they both breathe a sigh of relief at that. A part of him thinks they had both secretly doubted they’d survive the conversion.

It’s nice to be wrong sometimes.

__________________________

They stay for just over a month.

He’d managed to cobble together some supplies while he waited on her recovery; another tube of moisturiser, this one half-empty already. A backpack. A few bottles of stale water. A radio. 

He shrugs his shoulder at her questioning look. “I’m pretty sure it’s broken but, well. Better than nothing.”

She corners of her lips twitch up into a slight smile, “You still have hope?”

He shakes the radio, emphasising the way it rattles ominously like something internal is loose. Or broken. “Hope’s the only thing that’s gonna help us.”

Her smile fades at that but then she nods firmly, reaching out a hand for the radio. “ _I_ still have hope.” She tells him, cradling the radio to her chest when he hands it over. “We’re both still alive. We survived an _apocalypse_. What’s one radio, right?”

And he can't help but murmur his agreement when she looks at him like that, wide blue eyes searching his own for reassurance.

When they finally manage to break their way free from the rubble covering the lab’s entrance, they look out at the desert wasteland that was once the ocean. 

Bellamy clenches his jaw at the sight.

It’s somehow worse than they’d been expecting. He doesn’t say it, although he knows she wouldn’t judge him. Knows she’s probably thinking the same thing, but—

If he says out loud that he doesn’t have any idea how either of them are going to survive this, that’ll make it real.

But then he remembers the stubborn look on her face as she cradled the radio.

Remembers that they’re still breathing. 

That’s more than he thought they’d get.

He’s got to have hope.

210 miles to Polis.

__________________________

For the first several days, Clarke makes them stop to dig graves for the bodies they find. 

Charred, mangled things he honestly doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole but he knows he’s incapable of leaving her to do it alone. Just like he knows she would’ve, without question or complaint.

_Your fight is over._

_May we meet again._

By the end of the week, even Clarke has given up. 

There’s just too many of them.

__________________________

They try to ration the bottles of water as much as possible, keeping to just a few sips when absolutely necessary. 

Next to him, Clarke’s breath comes out rattled and hitching as she does her best to keep up with his pace. He slows down for her, not enough that she’d notice of course, but just enough that she stumbles less and her breathing sounds less like an effort. 

He doesn’t tell her that sometimes he only lets the water touch his lips without actually drinking from it. And he doesn’t call her on it when he realises she’s been doing the same.

He’ll put her first always, _always_ , but even he can admit that sacrifices need to be made.

__________________________

The rover is a godsend.

Clarke laughs in shocked delight at the sight of it, knocking her shoulder into his own as she tells him the first to reach it can have shotgun.

He doesn’t _let_ her win, of course. He’s just weak from the lack of food and water. 

That’s all.

Besides, she doesn’t have the best history with driving. She’d suit shotgun a lot better than he would — despite her very _vocal_ opinions of his own skills or lack thereof.

Then they see it. 

Polis.

Or, what was once Polis. 

It’d survived the first time the world ended but it couldn’t survive this. 

They eventually find what they think is the entrance to the bunker. They call out frantically for their family; her for her mother and him for Octavia.

_We’re here. We’re right here._

_Please._

His voice breaks on his sister’s name even as his nails tear and newly-black blood begins to stain the concrete separating him from her. 

Countless hours pass and he feels like Sisyphus, rolling a boulder endlessly up a hill, hoping that this time, _this_ slab of concrete, will bring an end to his suffering.

Like with Sisyphus, it’s a useless thought.

When the rubble almost caves in on Clarke, he snaps.

“Clarke, stop.”

He sounds as tired as he feels.

She looks at him, jaw clenched as she blinks back tears of frustration and anger and fear. “We can’t get to them, can we?” It’s not really a question.

It’s an admission of defeat.  
  


__________________________

They hop back into the rover, although Clarke is a lot less cheerful about it this time around. She doesn’t even pretend to fight him over who gets to drive, she just leans her head against the window of the vehicle and stares dolefully out at the dry, yellow haze of this post-Praimfaya world.

They wordlessly agree to go back to Arcadia. 

Back home.

There’s nowhere else _to_ go. 

It turns out to be as ruined as Polis was, but this time it hurts less, even though this was more theirs than Polis had ever been. They were both expecting it this time, he thinks. 

Clarke hasn’t asked for water in hours and he _knows_ she needs it because he’s seen her licking her lips from the corner of his eye. He also knows she _won't_ ask unless he can find some more water to replace the one remaining bottle they have left. They decide to split up and he goes directly to the mess hall in the hopes of finding more water bottles. 

Even a stagnant barrel they previously would’ve used as bathing water but could potentially boil to drink.

Nothing.

Nothing but dust and dirt and more dead bodies.

He stares at what remains of his old home dolefully for a long while before turning away. He begins going room-to-room, the likelihood of finding any water dwindling after he comes up empty-handed again and again.

He has vague thoughts of maybe finding at least a ration bar or perhaps some more moisturiser for their still-aching skin but instead, all he finds is a miraculously unburned copy of The Iliad in what may have been his bunk, once upon a time. 

He stuffs it into his backpack before going to meet Clarke. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is pale underneath her still-healing burns and when he sees her clutching a familiar-looking mp3 player in her hand he understands.

They can't stay here either.

__________________________

The quiet starts to get to them.

The thirst.

They snap at one another, and almost immediately apologies and requests for forgiveness spill from their lips.

They’re not angry at each other, he knows.

He’s been angry at Clarke almost as long as he’s known her and this? This isn’t for her.

But there’s nobody else around.

One day, after a particularly vicious blow-up between them, she turns to him before he can apologise. “Why did you stay?”

What?

“What?”

“Why did you _stay_.” She repeats, and he can see her eyes are glistening.

He’s made her _cry_.

“I told you—”

“I know you didn’t want to leave me,” She says carefully, avoiding his eyes and doing her best to surreptitiously blink the tears from her own. “But why? I mean, do you even _like_ me, Bellamy? Are we even _friends_?” She sounds tired.

“Of course I like you.” But it feels dishonest. Of course he likes Clarke, who wouldn’t? But it feels like such an inadequate descriptor when he very much _more_ than likes her. 

‘Like’ could never be a strong enough word for what he feels for her.

He doesn’t think there’s a single word left in the world that would fit.

If there is, he’s certainly struggling to find it right now.

She must sense he’s not being entirely truthful because when she finally turns to look at him she seems sceptical. 

“I do,” He insists, because he _does,_ regardless of whatever else he feels. “I don’t think there’s anybody else in the whole world I like more than you.”

She’s quiet for a moment as her eyes trace his face, thoughtful like she’s trying to gauge how honest he’s being with her. And then she’s snorting out a laugh. 

“We’re the _only_ people in the whole world, Bellamy.”

He laughs with her and the moment is broken. 

All is forgiven.

That’s the way it works with them.

Always has been, always will be.

They fall asleep next to one another in the rover and that night they wake to the sound of rain. Their joy is far-too-loud in the silence left behind after the deathwave and if he let himself think about it, he would probably realise that it’s the silence that makes them laugh so loudly.

Freely. 

_Look_ , their voices seem to tell the world around them. _We’re still here._

_You haven't killed us yet._

__________________________

They mutually agree never to talk about the bugs again.

__________________________

They lose the solar panels on the rover a few days later in a dust storm that’s more glass than dust, and with that, they lose the rover. No power, no machine.

No more lucky breaks.

Bellamy punches the steering wheel until his knuckles purple and Clarke bites her lip so hard she starts bleeding.

They don’t say anything to each other.

They keep moving.

They reach the desert and she burns under the heat of the sun almost immediately. He helps her tuck a scarf around her face in an effort to keep her protected and wordlessly shoulders the backpack holding their meagre belongings. 

He’d never really thought about the benefits of his darker skin. On the Ark it had been just another thing to set him apart from most of his peers and on the ground it hadn’t really been something he factored in outside of acknowledging how he seemed to turn a golden-hue as the weather became warmer.

But here? Now? It gave him an unwelcome leg-up on Clarke whose porcelain complexion had started to once again resemble the radiation burns that he swears she had only just healed from.

They walk until nightfall and probably would’ve kept walking if he hadn’t insisted they stop for the night. 

Almost immediately, Clarke collapses into a heap and he drops down next to her. His hand hovers uselessly above her shoulder before he pulls it back and lets it sink into the sand, cooler than it is during the day but just as dry, as unforgiving against his blistering skin. 

Clarke is panting, almost dry-heaving and he thinks if there was anything left in her she’d almost certainly be throwing it back up. His mind flashes to his Earth Skills lessons on heatstroke and dehydration.

He doesn’t think they can last much longer.

__________________________

He’d managed to coax Clarke into drinking a few sips of water, almost the last of it, and now they’re each lying on their backs, staring up at the night sky. 

She had bundled up her jacket to use as a pillow while Bellamy is content to rest on the arms folded behind his head. If he closes his eyes he can almost imagine he’s back in the Dropship days, when he’d done this exact thing the first chance he could. When he’d finally been able to look at the constellations he’d spent his whole life reading about.

His eyes blink open and he frowns up at the inky blackness that greets him. Clarke’s voice is subdued when it comes from her little makeshift nest, “What is it?” She asks, already turning to blink blearily at him. “What’s wrong?”

He mimics her movements, shifting to face her. He can’t really see her, not at this time of night, not when there’s no light because they couldn’t find anything to build a fire with. 

He doesn’t even know how she knew he’d been frowning. 

Guesses she just knows him that well, maybe.

He refuses to think about that though. Not now. He doesn’t want them to do anything just because they might—

“I was thinking about the stars,” He confesses. “I used to read about them to O.”

“You mean Bellamy Blake voluntarily read more than ancient myths?”

He huffs out a laugh at that, “Shows what you know, princess. The stars have myths in them.”

“Really?” She sounds intrigued.

“Yeah.” He pauses, “Not all of them, though. I do know ones that aren’t about myths. I’m very cultured.”

“Practically collegiate.” She replies. Her voice is soft, quiet to match the quietness of their new life, but it’s much less subdued than it was just a moment ago. This time he can hear the answering smile in her voice as she teases him, a little spark of life still left in her. He didn’t realise how much he’d missed that over the past few days. 

“Tell me about them.”

“The stars?”

“Yeah. What’s your favourite?”

A pause as he thinks and then he spots it. “Lyra.”

She hums, “That’s pretty”

“Yeah,” He grins. “It was my mum’s favourite too.” He points to a small cluster that almost looks like a fish, if you squint. That’s how he describes it to Clarke, and she doesn’t laugh even though it’s a fairly ridiculous comparison.

“Orpheus had a lyre, the _first_ lyre, and its music was so beautiful that all the trees, and streams, and even the rocks would dance to his music.”

She’s quiet for a long while as she considers what he said and then, “I don’t know what you’re pointing to.” She confesses. 

He pulls her closer, slowly, giving her plenty of time to resist.

She doesn’t.

He folds her against his chest, mindless of the way she rubs painfully against the sunburn on his shoulders. What’s a little sunburn compared to this?

Clarke.

In his arms.

He wraps his hand around her own, brings it up so it’s pointing too. “Okay, see that one that looks sort of like a funny L-shape?”

“Uh huh,” She replies softly, and he thinks she might be lying but he doesn’t call her out on it. This isn’t really about the stars anyway.

She’s still just a body in the dark but— 

But.

“And if you look down,” He murmurs against her hair, moving their conjoined hands slightly downwards. “You can sort of see a big cross?”

“Yes! I see that!”

He grins into the darkness, “Well that’s Cygnus—“

“A swan?”

“—A swan.” He agrees. “There are lots of swans in mythology but my favourite is the one where Orpheus is murdered and transformed into a swan—”

“Orpheus with the lyre?”

“Exactly.” He moves their hands slowly to the right, “And if you look next to him, you can see the lyre is with him. That’s Lyra.”

She gasps, twisting her hand in his own so she can squeeze it excitedly. “Bellamy, I see it!”

He huffs out a laugh at her excitement, and then without thinking he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

Immediately, they both suck in a breath. 

He stills.

Then slowly, he moves his lips away. 

She’s still holding his hand.

After a moment's pause she squeezes it one more time before slowly shifting away from him. He lets her go without complaint and purposely doesn’t think about how she doesn’t go too far, simply moves from her spot on top of him to instead curl up at his side.

They’re both silent for a long while after that, but he’s certainly not going to be the one to break it. Not when it was him who overstepped.

Eventually though, she speaks;

“It _does_ sort of look like a fish.”

An olive branch.

He’ll take it.

__________________________

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! i had this chapter ready and figured i wouldn't make you wait around for it but i can't promise that all my updates will be this quick haha.
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are absolutely appreciated & not to be _that person_ but they really do inspire me to update (though please write something other than 'i hope you update soon' lmao)
> 
> — come visit me on [tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/swainslake/)


	3. three

  
__________________________

If she’d thought those first few days after Praimfaya were hard, when her skin was sloughing off in bloody clumps and she couldn’t move without wanting to scream out from the pain of it, it’s only because she hadn’t yet known what was awaiting them.

Bellamy tells her his Sisyphus theory and she has to agree it's fairly apt; they keep reaching the top of a hill only to tumble down it the very next day.

They make it past the once-ocean, only to stumble upon the ruins of Polis. They leave Polis and Arcadia, only to be caught in a glass storm. They survive the glass storm only to slowly bake under the searing sun. They survive the sun only to die of thirst. 

Over and over, a new trial. A new horror. 

Eventually, she can’t do it anymore.

She just — she _can’t_.

She tears the scarf from her head, shrugs her jacket from her shoulders and lets herself sink to the ground. 

It’s finally won.

Let it have her.

From his spot a few paces in front of her, Bellamy turns with a questioning look in his eyes that quickly turns to concern. To fear.

Immediately he’s by her side, reaching for her, but Clarke pushes his hands away. The feel of his skin is too-rough, too-hot, too- _much_.

She can’t bear it.

Truthfully, she doesn't think she's ever wanted him to touch her more, never wanted to crawl into his lap and be _taken care of_ more, but she just can’t bear it.

It’s not _fair_.

Beside her, Bellamy rifles through the backpack and pulls out the canteen filled with the last of the rainwater they’d managed to collect days (weeks?) ago. He gives it a shake, looking pained. “There’s only enough for a mouthful.” 

He pushes it into her hand before he stands, looking around helplessly, and Clarke knows what she’s got to do.

It was always going to be this way, she thinks.

She drops the canteen.

She wasn’t meant to last this long.

She should’ve died in Praimfaya.

She can’t bear his touch, but she could bear this.

For him.

She tells herself it’s for him.

The click of Clarke’s gun echoes.

“Wha—”

He turns and there she is, already aiming it at him. Her eyes meet his as she weakly pushes the canteen back towards him, “You drink it.”

He clenches his jaw, “You’re pulling a gun on me again, Clarke?”

She hesitates for a split second at that, mind immediately flashing back to the bunker, when she’d held a gun on him, even fired it, but couldn’t let herself hit him. If she’d just listened to her instincts, she thinks, he might’ve been safe.

He would’ve hated her for the rest of his life, but he would’ve _had_ a life.

With their people.

She feels her eyes harden and in an instant, she’s turned the gun towards her own temple.

She can’t hit him, but her?

She was fair game.

Her choice, her _only_ choice, so he didn’t have to make it for them.

“No arguments, Bellamy. Drink the water.”

He doesn’t even look at it. 

“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

In a flash, he has his own gun to his temple. “Don’t I?”

“ _Bellamy_ —”

He ignores how her voice cracks over his name, the way her gun wavers. “This is not your decision to make, Clarke.” He says.

“I’m not doing this without you.” He says.

“We’re going to walk until we can’t anymore, and then we’ll take half a sip each.” He says.

Her eyes fill with tears, “I already _can’t_ —”

“Then I’ll carry you. But we’re still going to have half a sip each.”

“You’ll die. We’ll _both_ die.”

“Then we die.” He tells her matter-of-factly, his grip on his gun unwavering. “Together. You go, I go.”

She lets out a sob at that, face crumbling as she lets her hand drop. The weight of the gun is heavy and she doesn’t fight him on it when he’s suddenly at her side, pulling it from her grip and tucking it into his waistband. He uncaps the canteen she’d dropped and her lip wobbles as he wordlessly holds it to her lips. He runs his fingers through her hair, ignoring the gritty oiliness of it as he tilts the canteen just enough for half a mouthful of water to dribble into her mouth. 

Under his hard gaze, she forces herself to swallow and it’s only after she’s done that he brings the canteen to his own lips and drinks the very last of it.

They’re going to die, she thinks blearily. They’re both going to die.

“Together?” She croaks.

“You go,” He drops the canteen, pulling her closer and pressing his sweaty forehead to her own. “I go.”

It’s a promise.  
  


__________________________

That’s when they see the bird.  
  


__________________________

The valley is. . . beautiful.

More than beautiful. 

More than a paradise.

It’s indescribable.

It’s _hope_.

What they’re not expecting is for hope to have a _stench._

Death, everywhere. It clings to everything.

It looks like the death wave had completely missed it, this little patch of green, but unfortunately, the radiation hadn’t.

There are more dead bodies here than they’d seen in weeks and Clarke’s heart aches when she sees the children. The _babies_.

Bellamy’s jaw tightens and she thinks maybe he’s blinking back matching tears but almost as soon as the thought crosses her mind, he’s turning to her and he’s once again wearing his Bellamy Blake no-nonsense look.

She’s so grateful.

He's always so strong.

For their people.

For her.

He thankfully hadn’t had to make good on his promise of carrying her but he _had_ had to help her walk through the forest until they’d found this little village, one arm holding onto a stray branch he'd started using as a walking stick while the other curled securely around her waist. He helps seat her down at a table positioned underneath a row of colourful streamers and tells her he’s going to find some water.

For the first time in weeks, she thinks there’s a very real possibility that he might actually manage it.

She rests her head on the table and she must fall asleep because the next thing she knows she’s blinking awake as Bellamy frantically shakes her shoulder.

“Clarke?”

“I’m okay.” She assures him and he looks like he’s going to argue for a moment before sighing and shaking his head ruefully at her. 

“Sure, princess.”

She’s ready to _insist_ when he suddenly grins, holding the canteen up to her face and giving it a pointed shake. “Look!” And she hears it.

Water.

It’s _full_.

“Oh my god,” She practically moans as she reaches for it, “You found water!”

“I found a _lake_.” He corrects with a smug grin. “A whole lake, Clarke. It’s _huge_. And I think I saw some fish.”

She pauses in gulping down the water to smile weakly up at him, relieved and shocked, and just generally so goddamn _elated_ that they might actually have a _chance_ that she almost starts to cry. “Fish?”

He nods, eyes crinkling in joy. “Fish.”

She laughs then, half-hysterical. “Bellamy _fucking_ Blake. You did it.”

“Yeah, well.” He ducks his head shyly at that, peeking up at her through his curls. “Did you doubt me?”

And then they’re both laughing.  
  


__________________________

They find a cabin without any dead bodies (“A problem for tomorrow,” Bellamy sighs when she hesitantly brings up what they’re going to do with the dozens of bodies they’ve already seen and the dozens more they probably haven’t found yet) and Clarke immediately goes to collapse onto the bed in the corner before she realises.

There’s only one bed.

She turns to him questioningly and sees he looks about as awkward as she feels.

It feels different from when they’d laid next to one another on the desert sand or in the rover. That was practicality. This felt—

Different.

Intimate.

She must’ve been silent for too long because Bellamy hesitantly offers, “I can take the floor—”

She can’t help but scoff at that, “That’s _ridiculous_.”

“—or find another cabin.”

“That’s even _more_ ridiculous.” 

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with suggestions.” He bites back.

She nibbles her bottom lip and glances at the bed, then back to him. It really was ridiculous to not just. . . keep doing what they’ve been doing. She nods decisively. “We’ll share.”

She convinces him to lay down next to her but almost immediately they encounter another problem: the sheets.

Or more accurately, them on the sheets.

Clarke’s been studiously trying not to think about the filth she’s been covered in for weeks now, the sweat and blood and sand. The rotted flesh that’d been peeling off of her first from the radiation burns, and then later from the burns she’d gotten from the sun. She’s been not thinking about it _so hard_ but now, with their imminent survival no longer their main concern, she can’t help but think of it.

It’s Bellamy who hesitantly brings it up.

She knows she smells, and honestly she must look a mess. Still, for him to be the one to suggest it? That’s a stab in the ego she might not recover from anytime soon.

Oh, she knows he doesn’t mean anything _mean_ by it. He’s not like that, plus he’s been looking at and smelling her for days now. He was probably used to it. Just like she was used to him. But nobody’s ever told her she needed a bath before and it makes her feel dirty and _less-than_ in a way she’d never thought she could feel.

“I don’t think I could make it to the lake.” She confesses. “But you should go. I’ll take the floor tonight so I don’t mess up the sheets and tomorrow—”

“Okay, now _you’re_ being ridiculous.” He tells her. “I brought back a bucket of water, we can just use that.”

  
__________________________ 

Bellamy goes first, smiling reassuringly at her as he leaves the cabin to wash up outside. He’s right outside, she shouldn’t feel like she’s watching him go off to war. Especially considering she actually has watched him go off to war, more than once.

At least she knows he'll survive a bath.

She peeks out at him from the window as he strips his shirt off and uses it like a cloth, first dipping it into the bucket of water he’d collected and then bringing it up to rub across his arms, neck, chest.

Her mouth turns dry at the sight of his bare body, golden in the low light of the setting sun but a raw-looking red around his neck and shoulders. He hadn’t burned nearly as badly as she had, but evidently he hadn’t managed to escape the desert entirely unscathed either.

And he hadn’t said a word.

She looks away quickly when he moves to unbuckle his pants, face flushing with something decidedly _not_ sun-related.

They’d both lost weight since Praimfaya but Bellamy was still—

Well.

He was always beautiful. This wasn’t news.

Not for the first time, she wishes she could draw him.

To distract herself she busies herself with removing her boots, wincing at the way the laces are practically fused together by grit and sweat-wet sand. Good thing they have plenty of water for bathing because her feet are going to _stink_.

He’s gone for maybe ten minutes and when he comes back in she’s finally shoeless, and he’s still shirtless, but thankfully he’s at least wearing pants.

No belt though, she notices. He looks comfortable in a way he hasn’t for a really long time.

He frowns in concern at the redness she hadn’t quite managed to calm from her face, moving to place a hand against her forehead. She smiles weakly at him and waves his hand away. It’s fine. She’s fine.

Except — when she’s the one standing in front of the bucket she hits an unexpected snag.

She’s taken off her own shirt, as well as the bra that’s probably, _definitely_ , on its last legs, but she can’t reach everywhere.

It’s so _pathetic_ , and she wants to cry but that’s even _more_ pathetic.

The great Wanheda, can’t even bathe herself.

She must take too long staring dolefully down at her own reflection because Bellamy’s voice calls out her name from his place inside the cabin. She can hear the concern, the worry. Maybe he feels a bit like he’s sent her off to war too; they haven’t spent this long apart in _months_.

It’s what breaks her.

She sniffles, and a tear falls from her cheek to land in the water.

She’s not _sad_ , she wants to insist to the world. She’s crying because she’s _tired_ , and she just wants to _sleep_ , but she can’t because she’s _dirty_ , and she wants to be _clean_ and she misses her _mum—_

She can hear Bellamy’s footsteps behind her and she sniffles again, louder this time as she tries to bring herself under control. She’s _fine_. He doesn’t need to worry. She brings up a hand to rub the tears from her eyes.

“Clarke?”

“I can’t reach my back.” She tells him, staring resolutely down at the water. She did _not_ want to see the look on his face.

“What?”

“I can’t reach my back, and if I bend over to wash my legs I’m gonna fall. And if I fall I won’t get up, Bellamy. I’m so _tired_.” Her voice breaks on the last word because it’s _true_. She is. She was done hours ago, maybe days, but Bellamy had refused to let her give up, refused to let her just _stop._

He'd half-carried her, force-fed her water, encouraged her every single day with a soft word or a rallying speech or a scream in her face that _this wasn't the end, he needed her, now get up and fight!_

He'd even offered to help her keep her balance when she'd had to crouch to pee in the desert while suffering heatstroke, which had been the most humiliating moment of her life bar none.

Well, until now.

And this? This was the last straw.

She really was just _done_.

He moves closer hesitantly, “I can—” He clears his throat awkwardly, “I can help?” 

“Help?”

“Only if you need it.” He rushes to assure her. His voice is _far_ too casual. “I used to help Octavia when she was a kid. Piece of cake.”

 _Great_. 

She reminds him of his little sister when she was a _kid_.

This was probably because he'd had to help her pee, like an infant.

The humiliation was real.

But, she thinks mournfully, so was her need to _sleep_.

She hesitates. 

It was one thing to know he’s aware of her bodily functions, that he'd seen her practically naked when she was passed out and he had to pull her from her radiation suit, had to strip her himself like it was _nothing_ —

But this?

This was a lot. Even for them. _Especially_ for them.

She can barely stand.

She certainly can’t reach more than her arms and chest.

She might have to lean on him and she’s not wearing a shirt, would need to take off her pants. Him touching her like that, while she’s awake and conscious? While she touches him back? It was too much. 

She nods anyway.

Behind her he huffs out a shaky breath and moves closer, reaching out to take her shirt from her hands. She’d been using it as a cloth the way he’d used his own but now it was the only thing covering her breasts.

She loosens her grip.

He’s seen breasts before.

Probably more breasts than even she's seen.

This was _fine_.

He starts at her back, moving her hair gently so that it lay over one shoulder and then without another word he dips the shirt into the bucket before bringing it up to her neck. Her eyes flutter closed at the feeling of the cool wetness dripping down her skin and she lets her head fall forward slightly. Just a little. 

His pause is almost imperceptible before he’s continuing down her shoulders, across the expanse of her back. She shivers as he runs his cloth-covered hand across her spine. 

He can probably feel the knobs of it, probably see all her scars.

She wordlessly unfastens the button of her pants, pushing them down over her hips, her ass. Her underwear follows. She kicks them both off and he instantly crouches down to tackle her feet.

He lifts one, and she falls forward slightly to lean her weight on the table next to where the bucket had been placed, face burning as she remembers how not even half an hour ago she’d been thinking about how badly they smelled.

He doesn’t say a word.

Still, she can feel her eyes tear up and she sniffs again.

This _sucked_.

He rubs gently between each of her toes and she twitches at the way it tickles, huffing out a wet-sounding laugh before she can even think to try and stop it. That makes him pause. “Ticklish?” 

She can almost hear the teasing grin in his voice, but beneath that, she thinks she can also hear hoarseness. Maybe she’s not the only one affected by this. Maybe he _doesn't_ think of her like a kid sister.

“Maybe.” She replies shakily.

As though testing his theory, he lightly strokes a finger across the arch of her foot and she yelps, kicking out instinctively. “Bellamy! Don’t you dare.”

“You are!” He sounds delighted.

“Maybe,” She kicks at him again, as a warning. “Just a little.”

“Who would’ve thought?” He muses quietly, almost to himself, and then he's moving onto her other foot, up her calf, the back of her knee, pausing at her thigh. She looks behind her when he stops and his eyes are almost black as he looks up at her through his curls, quirking a brow at her as though asking for permission.

She nods once, tightly. 

Turning to face the bucket once more, she stares fuzzily at her reflection in the water as she feels the soft cloth trail over her ass, between her thighs. 

This isn’t the first time she’s ever thought about him touching her there, probably won't be the last either. But this, this was a _lot_.

It's almost too much. The last person to touch her like this had been Niylah. Safe, easy Niylah, who never expected more than she could give.

If she’s honest, at least with herself, then she’d probably admit this might be more than she could give. She doesn’t think she’s ready. Not yet. Not like this.

But, she muses, this wasn't _her_ giving. This was Bellamy giving. That was different.

Wasn't it?

The sun has almost completely disappeared by now and there’s just enough light left in the camp that it could be classed as mood-lighting if she was feeling a little less strung-out about this whole situation. She thinks it makes this feel more intimate than it actually is, but then she immediately dismisses that. It feels intimate because it _is_.

In his defence though, his movements are _almost_ clinical; he doesn’t linger or take liberties, but she knows, she _knows_ he’s not as unaffected as he’s pretending to be.

The hand between her legs trembles and she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from whining. From telling him to stop.

Not because she doesn’t want his hand there, even if she might not be ready, but because he’s touching her like—

Like she’s something precious.

Like he can’t believe he’s touching her.

Can’t believe he’s _allowed_ to.

She wants to know how long he's felt this way about her without her taking notice. Like he wanted to touch her, like she was worthy of that.

Except, no. She really doesn't want to know.

It’s _too much._

She doesn’t say anything.

They finish in silence and he keeps his back turned while she pulls her clothes back on, wet shirt and all.

The bra stays on the table though. She’ll wash it tomorrow.

When they fall asleep that night, he faces the opposite direction and makes sure to leave as much room as possible between them.

She tries not to be hurt.

It’s not like she was expecting anything to happen anyway.  
  


__________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, comments and kudos are absolutely appreciated & not to be _that person_ but they really do inspire me to update quicker (though please write something other than 'i hope you update soon' lmao)
> 
> — come visit me on [tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/swainslake/)

**Author's Note:**

> — come visit me on [tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/swainslake/)


End file.
